Can Öncü will line up fifth on the grid for the first FIM Supersport World Championship race of the weekend at the Misano World Circuit Marco Simoncelli after a challenging Superpole session for Yamaha.
Having led the way in the Free Practice session earlier in the day, series leader Stefano Manzi had hoped for a home pole position and looked in a good place to do exactly that mid-way through the Superpole qualifier, however, while pushing for the top spot, the Italian crashed at Turn 16. Luckily, he was able to get back to the box where the Pata Yamaha Ten Kate team worked swiftly to return Manzi to the track with five minutes to go. With two flying laps, the Italian was able to set a time good enough for fifth on the grid, until the time was taken away due to the presence of yellow flags in the closing stages of qualifying.
This left Öncü (Yamaha BLU CRU Evan Bros Racing) as the top R9 rider on the grid, moving up to fifth place with his time of 1’37.513.
After his lap-time cancellation, Manzi will start Race 1 from tenth on the grid. A crash for Lucas Mahias (GMT94 Yamaha) in the closing stages saw him unable to improve his time, so the Frenchman will start 15th on the grid.
Making his World Supersport debut with GMT94 Yamaha this weekend, Roberto Garcia got off to an impressive start in free practice, but a crash in Superpole saw him qualify 20th on the grid, while Aldi Satya Mahendra (Yamaha BLU CRU Evan Bros Racing) also crashed in Superpole and will start 21st.
A tough session for Yamaha concluded with the second Pata Yamaha Ten Kate rider of Yuki Okamoto also suffering a crash at Turn 14.
Lights go out for Race at at 12:35 on Saturday.
Can Öncü – 5th (1’37.513)
“We are quite happy today, as we did not focus on outright lap time more on consistency and general pace – which we are happy with. We have to work for tonight to look at making a step forward tomorrow, we are happy with our consistency. The lap time in Superpole I am happy with, the second row is OK, but tomorrow we go racing which is the best part of the weekend so we’ll see what happens then!”
